The King Marries His Bride – Part 2 of 2

Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. The marriage supper of the Lamb will be a dinner like no other. At that table will be the redeemed of all ages. Christ will invite all those He died for to eat with Him in heaven. Today, more teaching on the ultimate wedding.

From the Moody Church in Chicago, this is Running to Win with Dr. Erwin Lutzer, whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line. Pastor Lutzer, in the sequence of events yet to come, where does the marriage supper fit in? You know, Dave, I don't really have a divine timeline that I can look at, but I do need to say that in the Bible, the 19th chapter, the book of Revelation, what we find is the marriage supper of the Lamb, and then the glorious return of Jesus Christ to earth. And it's very clear that in that return, He brings those whom He has saved, those who are clothed in white garments.

So somewhere after the rapture, of course, during the tribulation period and then as we end the tribulation period and the glorious return of Jesus Christ occurs, that's when we can expect the marriage supper of the Lamb. But here's what I want to emphasize. No matter where it fits, we know it's going to happen. I want to thank the many of you who support the ministry of Running to Win. We have many letters from people around the world.

Perhaps you've heard me say that we are in more than 50 different countries in five different languages. If you would consider becoming an endurance partner, will you need info? I'll give it to you quickly and then give it to you again at the end of this broadcast.

Go to rtwoffer.com, click on the endurance partner button or call us at 1-888-218-9337. Remember, what you do today will indeed impact your tomorrow. Jesus was criticizing the Jews for thinking that they had an entitlement to the kingdom because they said to themselves, well, you know, we have the right lineage. And Jesus said, you might have the right lineage physically, but you've never received Messiah.

You do not have a heart that is open to God. And then he meets a centurion and the centurion has great faith. And Jesus says these words. He says, verily I say to you, many shall come from the east and from the west and from the south and they shall sit in the kingdom with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. In another account, he also adds the prophets. And then he says, but the children of the kingdom, that is to say, those who thought they had entitlement, they will be shut out in a place of darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Oh, the words of Jesus are words of rebuke, words of warning, and words of great care. So I can imagine that the people who are there, they may indeed be the Old Testament saints.

Now I just want you to visualize it. Millions of people comprise the bride of Jesus Christ. Now it's time for the wedding and suddenly all of these Old Testament saints that have been resurrected come marching in. There is indeed Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And I'm sure that we instantly recognize them.

We think to ourselves, look at there for sure. There is Samson. After all, he was mentioned in the 11th chapter of Hebrews.

And you have all of these people. Oh, there's Rahab. I remember something about her. And there she is in the heavenly kingdom. Rank after rank, thousands upon thousands are gathering together for the marriage supper of the Lamb. You say, well, Pastor Luther, who's going to serve us?

Well, I don't know who's going to serve us, but I know one person who will. And I'm not making this up. This is a passage of scripture I've often contemplated. And if I think about it too long, I might break out weeping.

So I'm going to go very fast. It occurs in the 12th chapter of the Gospel of Luke. Jesus said, blessed are those who when the master comes, they are found to be waiting for him. For he says, they shall sit down and the master himself shall gird himself with the clothes of a servant and shall serve them.

Luke 12, 37. I can imagine there are many of us who, like Peter, would say, Lord, you're not going to serve me. Remember when Jesus wanted to wash Peter's feet? No, no, not my feet, Lord. Lord, Lord, can't you just imagine people jumping up and saying, Lord, you sit down. We're going to serve you. And then he'll say, don't you remember how I taught you that in the kingdom, he who serves is greater than he who rules?

And Jesus is going to serve us. You say, well, Pastor Lutzer, it's a wedding feast. What are we going to eat?

Isn't that what you're thinking of? What's on the menu? I don't know exactly what is on the menu, but I do know what we're going to drink.

I do know that much. In a Jewish wedding, it was very important for the bride and the groom to drink new wine. I mean, we're talking about the finest of all wines. They would keep that wine as long as was necessary, and they would save the very best for the wedding feast. Maybe the wine that was saved is something like the wine that Jesus made at the Cana of Galilee wedding, where they were upset with the host because they said you have kept the best wine till last.

They didn't know where it had come from. It's going to be very good wine, no doubt about it. That's what was served in the Orthodox Jewish weddings. Now come with me to the New Testament. One day, Jesus gathers his disciples together and says to them, I am going to invite you to share with me the Passover. And so they gather together, and in the midst of that feast, as all of you know, Jesus Christ takes bread and he breaks it and he says, this is my body which was broken for you, this do in remembrance of me. And then we discover that he took the cup, and he said, this cup is the new covenant in my blood, this drink in remembrance of me. And then in Matthew 26, he made this amazing statement. He said, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine again until I drink it anew with you in the Father's kingdom. The best wine will be saved for that.

And even those of us who don't drink wine on earth, is that going to be good wine as we enjoy the wedding feast? As I say, it's very difficult for us to put our mind around all of this because some of it may be symbolic. But you say today, Pastor Lutzer, what is really the bottom line?

I mean, if you're going to bring the plane down, where are you going to land? I'll tell you that if there's anything in this passage that is important, it is the intimacy and the closeness that we are going to have with Jesus Christ. The intimacy and the closeness. And when I said that Israel was invited to the wedding, I don't mean to imply that there are going to be various gradations in heaven. There is going to be some second-class citizens, some first-class citizens.

No, no, no, no. We'll all be together. But God oftentimes makes distinctions on earth, and for a time, he may make distinctions in heaven. But the thing that is most remarkable is the closeness that we have with Jesus. You know what Paul says in Colossians? When Christ, who is our light, shall appear, he says, then shall we also appear with him in glory.

Do you realize what that means? The entire universe is going to see how close we are to Jesus. Every demon, every angel, every unconverted person who is on planet earth, when Jesus Christ returns and they see that we are next to him, it says we will also be revealed with him in glory.

And you even imagine that, what it's going to be like. I know that in weddings today, the big issue, of course, is the beauty of the bride. What she's wearing, how she comes down the aisle. The groom, I mean, he could be standing there and not doing much of anything and nobody would know the difference. But I tell you in heaven, it's going to be very different than that. Throughout all of eternity, people are not going to ask the question, they are not going to ask the question, who is the bride?

That's not the question. The question that is going to be asked is, who is the groom? Who is that? Who is the lamb of God that redeemed his church and cleansed her that he should marry her? Who is this king that descends? Who is this Alpha and Omega? It is Jesus Christ, the Lord, King of kings, Lord of lords, God of all gods. That's who it is.

And the focus will be on him. The Apostle Paul said in the 11th chapter of Corinthians, he made this statement. He says, I have betrothed you to Christ. And he said, I want you to be a pure virgin. You remember during the engagement period, the whole point is whether or not we are pure, whether or not the bride and the groom are being faithful and true to each other and waiting for one another.

And then Paul says, but I fear lest as the serpent deceived Eve, so your pure minds might be led astray by the simplicity that is in Jesus. So I want to ask you today, are you being true to the bride and the bridegroom? I should say, are you being true to him?

You're engaged to him if you're a believer. And let me speak now to a different category of people. Does the name Tarik and Michelle Selah mean anything to you?

Maybe you've forgotten about them. They are the ones, you know, that snuck into the White House and got past security and ended up actually being able to shake hands and to speak to our president. It was an embarrassment for the Secret Service, needless to say. Just want you to know that nobody arrives in heaven and gets past security. Nobody arrives and says, well, here I am and I think I should be admitted too.

That'll never happen there. Jesus told an interesting parable. He told a parable about a man who showed up for a wedding feast and didn't have the right garment. And he was instantly spotted and he was asked to leave. I don't know how I can make this any clearer to you today than I'm making it.

But unless you accept Jesus Christ as your savior, unless you believe on him, you will not arrive in heaven. I love to tell that story that some of you may have heard me tell years ago about the time that I was actually in the White House and in the Oval Office. I was speaking over in Washington, D.C. and a member of the president's Secret Service detail said, would you like to go into the Oval Office tomorrow? It was a holiday and the president was out of town. This was when the first President Bush was president and so security maybe wasn't as tight as it is today. But he asked me if I wanted to go into the Oval Office the next day.

Have you ever had somebody say something to you and you know without praying about it that it's God's will? I wasn't going to say no to that. So we meet there and I had my two daughters with me and I only had two, though we have three daughters. But two were with me and we went past that little house with all the Secret Service agents. They basically looked at us and then they looked at him and they say, oh, you're with him? Just go on in. When you get to the White House on the step, other Secret Service agents, they just looked at us and then they looked at him and they said, oh, you're with him? Go in.

And then they said, oh, you're with him? Go in. And then you go in the hallway and then standing there at the door of the Oval Office, there is one more guard.

And he allowed us to go in, though we couldn't go to the president's desk, but we could put our foot into the Oval Office. Imagine with me, we die in a great holocaust. Imagine with me that we land on the other side and suddenly there it is on the other side of the curtain that we meet Jesus. And I want you to visualize centuries of angels all the way to the Father's house, standing guard. And then the angels look at us and they see Jesus who's going to accompany us and they say, oh, you're with him? Go on in. We meet more angels who say, oh, you're with him?

Go on in. And then in the distance, we see the glory of God and God is more holy and more righteous and more pure than we ever dreamed that he was. And suddenly we have a flashback because among us, there are some who are really big sinners, some who committed crimes of immorality and theft and selfishness. And it's just, it's just, and among those of us who perhaps didn't commit those sins, we have enough of our own and we begin to look to ourselves and we begin to say, we can't go in. We can't go in. We can't go in. We can't go in. But the angel says, you're with him. Go on in. And so we get escorted all the way into the Father's house.

Why? Because we have the righteousness of Christ credited to our account. It's the only way to get to heaven and to make it to the wedding feast. Let's pray together. Now if God has spoken to you today and you've never received Christ as Savior, you can do that even right now. You can say, Jesus, save me. You can accept him.

For those of you who know him, I have to ask you if you and I are being pure for the one to whom we are engaged. Father, throughout all of eternity, we will sing over and over and over again, worthy is the lamb that was slain. We thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.

Amen. I wish at this moment that you could look into my heart because you would discover how thankful I am for the continued growth of the ministry of Running to Win. You've perhaps heard me speak about this before, but I like to emphasize it is all because of the glory of God and partners just like you. I have in my hands a letter from a woman by the name of Diane who speaks about how our ministry has helped her to grow in the Lord, but then she ends by saying, I give. That means that she is a contributor to this ministry. I give because I am just listening to the voice of the Lord and wanting to invest in the kingdom. What an encouragement to all of us.

Let me ask you a question. Would you like to invest in the kingdom? Now, there are many different ministries, but among the many ministries, I would want you to consider Running to Win. Have you ever considered becoming a minister partner? We actually call them endurance partners, people who endure.

You know, the Bible says that we should run the race of life with endurance. Of course, you need some info, so here's what you do. Go to rtwoffer.com. That's rtwoffer.com, and when you're there, you click on the endurance partner button, or you can call us at 1-888-218-9337.

This ministry has grown because of people just like you, and some of you have never connected with us. Consider becoming a part of the Running to Win family. Once again, let me give you that info. Go to rtwoffer.com. Of course, rtwoffer is all one word. rtwoffer.com.

Click on the endurance partner button, or right now, call 1-888-218-9337. As you have heard me say on many occasions, together we're making a difference. It's time now for another chance for you to ask Pastor Lutzer a question about the Bible or the Christian life. Many marriages face an uphill climb these days. Maureen has written, in need of counsel, about her marriage.

She says, I'm at a crossroads in my marriage. To my knowledge, my husband is secretly involved in pornography. He's physically incapable of intimacy with me.

His family has a history of sexual sin, and one of their teenage relatives, who's a repeat sex offender, lives with them. I've given my husband to God, just as you frequently tell us to do. That gives me a measure of peace, but the situation is intensifying. What do I do? Maureen, a couple of things. First of all, my heart goes out to you. I can imagine how difficult this is for you, and especially if you have children, what that means to them, etc.

But a couple of comments. First of all, you say that your husband is secretly involved in pornography, to your knowledge. I hope that if you believe that, that you have a good solid basis to believe that, and it isn't simply a suspicion. And I'm assuming that, given your question, that you are convinced that that is the case.

So that's number one. Number two, what you need to understand is what your husband really desires is for him to continue in this secret sin without any bumps along the road. He wants to be able to do it and to manage the consequences and to believe the lie that he's not hurting anyone, that this is something that he can do and it does not affect anyone else.

That's the lie that he wants to continue to believe. So what you need to do, after admonishing him and letting him know that you know about this and that this is a situation that cannot continue, what you need to do is to make sure that there are some bumps along the road, that consequences will be in his future. For example, sharing the problem with his pastor, exposing it in some way. I don't mean publicly to stand up and expose it, but that you are going to go for counsel and you are going to go for help, and he won't be able to continue in his sin without some kind of a response, either yes or no.

Either he goes for help or he doesn't. So God will lead you in what that next step needs to be. Now the question of your relationship with your husband, you have to ask the question also if there is no change, especially if your marriage continues to be rocky. You need to ask the question, how much are you willing to put up with?

How much are you willing to live with for the sake of your testimony, for the benefit of your children, etc.? And in some marriages, there may be wives who simply say that for the benefit of my testimony and the children, I continue to hang in there. There may be other options, I suggest that you see a counselor to find out what those are, but the bottom line is I pray that God might bring healing to him, to your husband, with reference to his family that you ask about, a family that has a history of sexual sin, with a repeat offender living with them, etc. That's really a separate issue, and you can't fix that. As a matter of fact, you can't even fix your husband, Maureen. You're going to have to trust God.

But I would simply say that if possible, make sure that there are some boundaries between your husband and his family. I don't mean to cut them off completely, but he needs to see that he needs to get on a different road, to leave the past behind, to leave the family sins behind him, and get on to a new future. Even as I speak, I'm praying that God will grant him the grace to do that, and you the wisdom to know what your next step should be. God bless you.

You can write to us at Running to Win, 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois, 60614. The Bible tells about a future Antichrist, a great world leader who seeks and gets the worship of mankind. This evil being will be a rival to the real Jesus. His career will mimic that of Christ as he dies and is raised again. Next time on Running to Win, don't miss The King Tolerates His Rival. This is Dave McAllister. Running to Win is sponsored by the Moody Church.